Huh. Guessing how to spell that kid's last name and googling, it looks like he's an agent now, but I can't tell if NY or LA.

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What is a corner store kind of spa?

Is that akin to a hospital sort of restaurant?

When I was 10 ... we were living in Barbican and I hadn't been to England yet. That means that Warren and Tracy and Aisha still lived next door to us. This meant mango eating contests, me running clubs in a thinly veiled stab at controlling them all, stealing the older cousin's porn and reading it in a mixed group, and long days in the pool at the Senior Common Room while my father played tennis.

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What game shows were you watching, erika?

See, work avoidant.

You suck. t /tep

I was in South Florida when I was ten. Summers were hot and humid and breezy. I'd read the morning paper and eat cold cereal, probably just wearing a pair of cut-off shorts. If I mowed the lawn that day, I'd get my $10 allowance. Lawn mowing was always a semi-miserable experience since it'd start my allergies off in a big way. I'd come in completely sweaty and take a quick shower and down a Pepsi. Then I'd take off on my bike ready to spend money.

While I rode my bike I'd practice my loud whistle (which still comes in handy for hailing cabs). I'd probably stop by 7-11 and check out the new comics. I might get some penny candy, or Luden's Cherry Cough Drops. Maybe a Now 'n Later, or Sweet-Tarts. Then I'd ride my spider bike as fast as I could over the sidewalks, which had innumerable jump points because the tree roots made mini-ramps.

I'd ride my bike to the one used bookstore where all the paperbacks were half off cover price. I'd buy Robert Howard, or ERB or Fritz Leiber.

Maybe I'd come back early in the afternoon, after a lunch of two orders of McDonald's fries. (I'd dump them in the bag with some salt, shake it up, and eat while I rode my bike.)

Go back to my house and flop on my bed reading about the Grey Mouser for a few hours. Then I might go climb in the big tree in our side yard, sucking on Now 'n Laters and hang out with the next door neighbor kids. We'd swing from the limbs and get sticky sap on our hands.

The strongest smells I associate with summer though are from days we went to the beach. Particularly when you were driving home after playing out at the beach all day and you smelled like coconanut oil and sweat and beach salty air.

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What is a corner store kind of spa?

Is that akin to a hospital sort of restaurant?

It's a New England thing -- it's just what corner stores are called. I dunno.

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You suck.

cries and cries and cries.

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I think my childhood summers were very late century Southern typical. Parents divorced, sent off to grandparents or aunts. Kara and I were shocked by our spouses' not being close to at least their first cousins. We were close to 2nds, 3rds and removed. (I have a sort of funny story about that actually). But then, Morgans are weird.

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Ten years old would have been 1976 for me--so July 4th was definitely spent at the golf course adjoining the stadium (where everyone stretches out their blankets to watch the show--the only thing you miss out there are the ground firework displays, set up on metal frames).

Typical summer days at that age during the week would have included playing with the dog in the back yard while reading in the sun, riding my bike over to my friend's house a few streets away, and then, in the late afternoon, heading over to the park to play, hang out on the swings. Oh, and try to catch crawfish in the creek behind the park while cooling my feet in the water. I didn't have a watch, but I knew it was dinner time when I heard my dad's whistle (which was audible for a five-block radius--handy substitute for a dinner bell in those pre-cellphone days).

I'm trying to remember if the local branch library had opened when I was 10. I think it opened after I was 12, but after it did so, I'd take my bike down to the strip mall it was in at least twice a week. I was reading short romances by then, and I managed to get through most of the library's stock of them by the end of that first summer, and the next year I got myself a weekly babysitting gig for the librarian's two girls.

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Heather, your summers sound exactly like the summers I used to fantasize about as a kid; I'd read To Kill A Mockingbird and Member of the Wedding over and over and wish I had relatives in the deep South I could go and spend my summers with. And all my fantasies were nearly precisely everything you've just described. If you also skinny-dipped in a local creek and raised a pet raccoon or squirrel or possum from a baby, then that was it exactly.

t /dorky, dream-ridden kid

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It's weird that I can't really distinguish different summers by year. I know I went to drama camp at Tufts when I was pretty little, between 1st and 2nd grade, maybe? There were a bunch of summers with Y day camp, at least one with nerd day camp, I don't know what else.

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Out in the hills, the near-constant hum of miscellaneous insects, rising to an occasional clicky crescendo

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the intense buzz of the cicadas up in the pines.

The weight of heat, the animal pleasure of lying in the backyard right on the hot concrete, sunlight bearing down and sapping away everything but a pleasantly stoned torpor;

Mmmmm, heat....

barns for my Bryer horses (usually they had several hooves broken off).

JZ had a bunch of Bryer horses too.

There was one woman who always asked us to pray for soap opera characters.

Heh. Great detail.

This meant mango eating contests,

When I got older it meant mango daquiris.

me running clubs in a thinly veiled stab at controlling them all,

tactfully doesn't mention b.org

stealing the older cousin's porn and reading it in a mixed group,

Ahhh, stolen porn is the best. I shoplifted The Happy Hooker Goes Wild from The Treasury when I was about 12.

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